Fever

Fever is a difficult film, and I mean that in a good way. I think the director is creating a story about the raw emotions and desires in a young man caught in the modern world. We follow a painter in New York City who is not able to achieve his goals and dreams, and as a result, escapes into an alternate reality. However, this reality is as much of nightmare as his waking life. If not worse. Like Lynch and Cocteau, Winter forces us into this man's subconcious, and asks us to feel the terror and despair that affects this confused mind. I really enjoyed the trip.

To put it plainly, the movie revolves around this artist, who is so deeply disturbed by the gruesome murders of his landlord and his (landlord's) mother, that he becomes pallid and starts hallucinating. Now, why do the murders have such febrile effects on him and does he actually hallucinate, is where lies the suspense of the movie. Though a fairly simple movie with just a handful of characters, ‘FEVER' can be put under the rubric of scary movies. There is always an air of eeriness throughout the movie, with an abrupt ‘shocking' scene popping up every now and then, with a high potential to chill the bones most of the viewers. Much of the credit for what the movie is, should be given to the acting, mainly of the prime two characters, ‘Nick' and ‘Will', played by Henry Thomas and David O'Hara respectively. While Henry Thomas does a pretty good job of a person ‘spooked' by the murders in the movie, it is David O'Hara, who puts up a splendid performance, by acting as a mentally deranged, ‘psycho' Irishman, who is a sailor, and is a staunch believer of Nazism. The presence of such a character in the movie actually makes it spookier, than it already is. Along with good acting, the direction is pretty decent, too, maintaining just the right amount of the funereal atmosphere throughout, without going overboard with gory details. However, worth mentioning is this particular scene, which can be said as the pivotal scene of the movie, in which ‘Nick' encounters ‘Will', in a train: Though there is very little flaw in the direction in the rest of the movie, this particular scene, especially being a crucial one, is so grossly misdirected, that it ruins the build-up to it. Either this scene should have had more attention paid to the minor details, which are seriously flawed, (and do much damage to it) or else, it could've done without the backdrop of an underground train-ride, and could have done with a much less complicated backdrop.

The movie has all the elements of a spook-thriller, and is scary from the beginning to the end, building up to a good suspense. The overall feel of the movie is also well maintained, without trying to give too much detail to gore, and primarily paying attention to maintain the stolid and chilling atmosphere, in a very subtle manner.

Rating:7/10

It took me 14 years since the movie's theatrical release in November 2000 to sit through and watch this film written and directed by Alex Winter (best know for starring as Bill in the two film set Bill& Ted's Excellent Adventure and the movie sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey). For the greater percentage of films that make it out to a general release if the director is also the primary writer, the film will not do well at the box office, and for good reason. Writer's who want to direct, and/or director's who want to write a screenplay have a unique perspective that they want full control to present to their audience. Quite frankly, the audience does not want to see a unique "artistic perspective", we want to be entertained.

I read the majority of complimentary reviews of this film that were written a dozen years or so ago, and they all said how talented Alex Winter was as both a writer and director, some comparing his style to Alfred Hitchcock. Oh please, were these reviews written by Alex Winters' close friends and family? If not then roll forward to 14 years later in 2014 and look at Alex winters body of work as either a writer or director and you will see that Hollywood has not been banging down his door with financial backing for any subsequent films.

I rated the film as high as a 4 out of 10 only because of the strong performance of the lead actor Henry Thomas. Unfortunately although Thomas's performance was very real, his face appeared in 95% of the film and his psychotic and delusional behavior was irritating. I also found the lack of any notable musical score presented the film more as a documentary style (which it was not trying to be) than as a thriller. Alex Winter kept throwing in scenes that attempted to provide a film noir, "Hitchcock" approach, but in my opinion the film suffered even more so as a result.

After 14 years since its release and over 500 viewers scoring this films average rating of 6.1, I believe this is a very generous IMDb score. I will not be recommending this film to anyone to waste their time watching, even with the attractive Teri Hatcher playing Henry Thomas's sane sister.

Some viewers may enjoy this type of film premise of a disturbed young man who experiences dream sequences (or are they real?) and coming in and out of reality but it certainly is not my cup of tea. I say pass on this attempt at film noir. I give it a 4 out of 10 and this is generous only due to the good performance of Henry Thomas.

Winter doesn't seem to have his head around the screenplay for "Fever", a dark and morose drama about a young, disturbed NYC slum dwelling artist (Thomas) who is caught up in a trio of murders . The film paints a portrait so nebulous as to leave many questions unanswered as it plods toward an unsatisfying conclusion with a sort of Hitchcockesque style. Unfortunately we're not given reason to care about the principle and are left to wait for the other shoe to drop all the way to rolling credits. "Fever" is an okay watch technically and artistically which offers solid performances. However, the screenplay misses opportunities to put more meat on the bones of a story with unrealized potential. Okay fodder for couch potatoes into quirky film noir psychodramas.

To sum-up: Fever is a very dark, shadow-filled look into the formation of emotional disease and discomfort. The acting is very good on Henry Thomas' part as well as the direction by Alex Winter (Bill from the infamous Bill & Ted films) but the storyline has a few out-of-place moments and enough awkwardness to make even the sleepiest of viewers cringe.

Pro's & con's:

+ Henry Thomas' performance (you'll have trouble believing that it's the kid from E.T.)

+ Alex Winter's high quality and sometimes colorful directing style (including some nice, steady camera work which was more fitting for a film like this)

• Very cheap visual effects

• By the time it ends you'll feel like you've wasted your time